Desperately Seeking Petunia
by Lady Verity
Summary: It's baaaack! LM/PD, forbidden passion and fancy restaurants! Take a glance, you know you want to!


**Hello, all! It's baaaaack! This is just a one shot for laughs, because this silly idea firmly refused to leave my head. Enjoy, and a snake-head cane and binoculars to spy on the neighbors for all who review!**

"Say, Harold, that woman isn't looking at us," said Gertrude James, of number 5 Privet Drive. "Don't see her binoculars or anything."

"Really?" replied her husband Harold, looking up from his newspaper. That blasted woman had been dutifully spying on him and Gertie since they moved in twelve years ago. What had changed?

Actually, it had started with a change nobody would have predicted: Petunia Dursley had made peace with her nephew.

It had been the war that did it. All through her time in hiding with the Order, Petunia had had time to think. Mostly, she had thought about her past, and had come to a sad and unsettling conclusion: she really had loved her sister, she had just been unspeakably jealous. Who wouldn't have been? _Think_ of how easy Extendable Ears would have made it to eavesdrop all these years! And the things Magical Mess-Removers would have done for her kitchen! It was enough to bring her to tears, even now.

In the end, she had decided that the only way to make things right with her sister's memory was through Harry. And Harry, fresh with some perspective from Snape's memories, had agreed to giving her a second chance. Since Harry was going to make up his seventh year at Hogwarts, and because the two of them had been getting along so well over the summer, he had even invited her to go back-to-school shopping with him on Diagon Alley, and she had accepted.

That was where the trouble had started. She was looking around, innocently enough, while Harry was picking up some books inside one of the shops when she saw . . . him. He looked like he was waiting for someone too, tapping his snakehead cane impatiently. He was so tall, with that shining hair, it was hard not to notice him. Petunia most definitely noticed.

She had begun to appreciate the sight of an attractive man more and more these days. It wasn't as if Vernon wasn't sweet, it's just . . . well, he was dumpy and boring, to tell the truth. And besides . . . women do have needs, and lately he just hadn't ben fulfilling them. So what if she was taking out some frustration in a little looking? It didn't hurt to look, right?

And speaking of looking, that man was staring at her in the most irritating way. His piecing silver eyes had an uncomfortably superior look about them, and he, annoyingly enough, was still deeply attractive despite the slight sneer on his face. In an atypical moment of sheer nerve, she walked over to him and asked, "What exactly are you looking at?"

Lucius Malfoy faltered. It had been several months since Narcissa left him for that cretin Macnair, and he noticed something oddly appealing in the Muggle woman's bony, defined features. But that was neither here nor there. "I was wondering," he drawled, "what one," here he paused to glance at her Muggle clothing, "such as yourself could possibly be doing on Diagon Alley."

There was something in his tone that bothered her, "Who or what exactly do you think I am?" she demanded, glaring.

"What I think-" he began, harshly, then changed his mind; it would be much more amusing to frighten this woman off a different way. "What I think is something we can discuss, say, over lunch next week? That is, if you don't mind dining with one of the most infamous wizards in Britain?" he purred.

_Infamous?_ This was better than a soap opera! And he had the most hypnotic stare . . . "I'd love that," she breathed, before her nephew's voice rudely cut in.

"Aunt Petunia? What are you talking to Lucius Malfoy for? Come on, let's get out of here."

Lucius had to admit, there was something appealing about the woman's fearlessness, and there was a perverse enjoyment in flirting with Potter's aunt. "Petunia, is it?" he whispered into her ear before they parted. "I'll be in touch."

To her shock, he was. Vernon hadn't even looked away from the television as she dove to intercept the large owl bearing a letter with her name on it. Its contents:

_Petunia-_

_Would you be so kind as to join me for lunch this Saturday at one o' clock? I know an excellent restaurant in London. I will be waiting to see you there, and look forward to continuing our conversation._

-_L. Malfoy_

At the bottom was the name of a restaurant. It was an expensive place; Petunia had heard of it but never been. And although she knew there was something completely inappropriate about the way her spine tingled from reading this letter, she also knew that wild horses couldn't keep her out of London that Saturday.

As luck would have it, the wild horses were in Manchester that week, so Petunia took the train. Lucius was waiting for her, dressed in elegant Muggle clothing. He had been wondering if this whole venture was a bad idea, given the woman's unfortunate lack of magic, but then, he reasoned, he'd always been an amoral man; why were pureblood principles different than all the other moral codes he broke regularly?

Lunch was a smashing affair; the two found they shared a certain snobbery, and thoroughly enjoyed looking down on the restaurant's other patrons. However, as they were getting up to leave, Lucius grabbed Petunia by the shoulders.

"What are you doing?" she asked, eyes contracting with sudden fear, although she'd wanted him to touch her all afternoon.

"Kissing you goodbye," he said roughly, tired of lying to himself that he wanted anything different, and there, in a public restaurant, Petunia Dursley received the most thorough and powerful kiss of her life, leaving her stunned long after he had disappeared.

Over the next few weeks there were more meals, and Petunia became very familiar with Malfoy Manor (she'd have been socked and Lucius unsurprised to learn that some of the neighbors were watching _them_), and Vernon remained oblivious, and she was shocked at how _not_ guilty she felt, until finally one day she wrote a letter, giggling the whole time (and not just because Lucius was nibbling and licking at her ear) as she told Vernon she was running off with one of the most infamous wizards in Britain.

Vernon was aghast, and so was Dudley, but Petunia didn't notice. She was too busy with her new husband, or trying to reconcile her nephew and stepson, and besides, her new neighbors in the wizard manor district were _much_ more interesting to spy on.


End file.
